Former cop faces arrest
By Andre Coleman. 01/10/2008
Pasadena Superior Court Judge Coleman Swart has issued a $30,000 arrest warrant for a former LAPD officer who has allegedly continued a racially driven pattern of harassment against two of his Altadena neighbors.
Swart issued the warrant Jan. 3 after Irsie Henry, 44, failed to show up for a hearing to determine whether he had violated any of the terms of a restraining order forcing him to stay away from John and Mellaine Hamilton.
Henry has had problems with Hamiltons and a number of other mixed-race couples in the neighborhood. John Hamilton is white. Mellaine Hamilton is black, as is Henry.
Henry worked for the LAPD’s Newton Division for almost 20 years before multiple complaints filed against him by the Hamiltons and other neighbors led to his firing.
At the conclusion of an October hearing, Swart told Henry that he was giving him one last chance after finding Henry guilty of cutting two tarpaulin sheets that the Hamiltons had placed in their backyard to prevent further encounters with the former officer.
The couple’s attorney, Spencer Vodnoy, presented at the hearing photographs of Henry hiding behind a telephone pole as he watched their home.
At that time, Swart sentenced Henry to 10 days in jail, and levied fines against him totaling nearly $7,000 for violating the restraining order. However, Swart suspended the sentence and told Henry to stay away from the Hamiltons.
In November, less than a month after the hearing, Henry and John Hamilton had another confrontation in front of their homes on Laurel Avenue.
In that case, Henry called LA County Sheriff’s deputies to complain about Hamilton.
But after taking reports from both parties and reviewing tapes supplied by the Hamiltons, deputies concluded that the events did not occur the way Henry claimed and issued a two-page supplemental report to Swart Thursday, claiming that Henry had used the law to harass the couple.
“I wasn’t surprised because eventually everything has to come to a head,” said Mellaine Hamilton. “The judge gave him six months and he couldn’t contain himself for three weeks. He doesn’t care and he doesn’t think the law applies to him.”
Henry, who as of Tuesday was not in custody, did not return phone calls for this story.
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